"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

An absolute classic. One of the few albums which there isn't a dodgy
song on it. Things I like:

(1) It speaks of man's fear of the times he lives in. This (personally
speaking) has made it get more and more relevant as times goes on.
I've heard it claimed as the first album to articulate this fear:
anyone care to give a counter example?

(2) They didn't have to make it. They could have made The Bends pt.2
and the world would never have known what it missed. But there's a
spirit lives in the hearts of men... Always a sucker for a good
narrative, me.

(3) The conscious push away from being A Guitar Band. Obviously Kid A
is further on this path, but I've been listening to a megamix of OK
Computer, Kid A and Amnesiac, and it does feel of a piece.

Dud. I think Devoto/Magazine covered similar territory in a much more
interesting and multi-dimensional way with Real Life/SecondHand
Daylight/Correct Use of Soap. Yorke works within such a narrow range
on OKC, with no light, wit or alternate perspective allowed, that I
quickly lost interest. I have to agree with Mark S -it's not exactly
unfamiliar ground in pop/rock. It's just that few have botched it as
badly as Radiohead.

Kid A though. Wow! I don't know what the hell he's on about, but it's
just beautiful!

Well, it's no way a classic, there are only a few good songs on
it...Let Down, No Surprises, a bit of Paranoid Android. The rest just
washes over me...it always strikes me as an album I could like, but
never really did.

I really must reconsider my position on the Stones as just irrelevant
rock dinosaurs. Hang on, this is the one with classic rock chugger
Honkytonk Women on it. How freaked out and paranoid is that?

>_Pithecathropus Erectus_?

This doesn't sound likely to get past my "Jazz Wank" filters. Not that
Instrumental Jazz can't sound claustrophobic (and I've quite liked
being slipped a mickey on the last albums by Spiritualized and, erm,
Radiohead), but it's apples and oranges to something with lyrics.

>_Germ-Free Adolescence_

Now this is more like it, by all accounts.

>I'm sorry: Radiohead are NOT the first people to address this issue.

You don't have to be sorry, you just have to answer the question. It
was asked in all honesty (and much ignorance).

I have to say this album doesn't annoy me as much as it once did: I
think I ended up despising it because back in 1998 so many people
were saying it was album of the year (and even the decade), when it
clearly and fundamentally was not. I think it has some nice
moments, but there's something too late 80's Simple Minds in it's
bombast far too much of the time.

OK (not to be totally spiteful), Bleed, Pith and Germ are just kinda random first-out-of-hat thoughts (not untrue they're tacklers,
but y'know, prob.not in my top ten or even top 100 of folks engaging subj-at-hand).

Instrumental vs lyrics/apples vs oranges: this makes no sense to me

One of Numan and Foxx MIGHT be in my top ten. Plainly Numan is a force-nine dimwit (and Yorke is... ?) but that just means GN's
unable to censor or rationalise as effectively as We Smart Foax do. The clueless express many things better, because they don't
notice, and sidestep.

Concept totally aside, "Cars" is a better record than any Radiohead will EVER make. This is basic.

It's an odd album. I think emphasising the content is a red herring,
kind of - in terms of lyrical/conceptual 'meaning' it's Radiohead's
weakest record (caveat: not heard Pablo Honey) for several reasons
but mostly because while albums about fear and paranoia are always
welcome Yorke gets into cliche and name-calling too much. I'm happy
to admit I do feel isolated and alienated and dislocated and all that
sometimes but Radiohead's other records are less big-picture and map
that feeling better, for me.

The technological themes are also a red herring - unlike with the
much crasser Grandaddy there's hardly any overt technofear on OKC -
the alienation seems pretty much entirely societal (in classic rock
style). "Cars" is a great single by the way, not so sure about the
rest of Numan.

I think in the end the specific content and concept are a cover story
to allow culture-paralysed types (not least the band) to enjoy Big
Rock themes (fuck the system) and more importantly Big Rock sounds,
which as Nicole suggests OKC has in spades. It'll age worse than
their other stuff but a lot of it sure is pretty.

_OK Computer_ is classic, classic, classic. The song "Paranoid
Android" alone makes it a classic album. The fact that it
has "Climbing Up The Walls", "Lucky", "The Tourist", "Let Down",
and "Exit Music (For A Film)" seals the deal.

Since there's now a principle at stake, Tom so-called Ewing, recall the following:

Everyday I Die. Steel And You. My Love Is A Liquid. Zero Bars (Mr Smith). Me! I Disconnect From You. Are "Friends" Electric?
Praying To The Aliens. When The Machines Rock. I Nearly Married A Human. This Wreckage. The Aircrash Bureau. Remind Me to
Smile. Sleep by Windows. I Dream of Wires. Remember I was Vapour. Please Push no More. I Die: You Die. A Subway Called "You".
Cry, the Clock Said. She’s Got Claws. Boys Like Me. My Brother’s Time. You Are, You Are. Music for Chameleons. We Take Mystery
to Bed. I am Render. This Prison Moon. My Centurion.

How long is it before Solinger buys OK Computer again, since Tom just
did? Arrrrgh. If I ever, ever, ever, ever have to hear OK Computer
again in my life, I will commit suicide. I just can't talk about this
album rationally. It's the most godawful whinging and everyone LOVED
it. I'd actually rather listen to Gorillaz.

i liked 'the bends' but never bothered with okc - can't be arsed with
getting all a bands records nowadays - heard a bit on 'Later' but
wasn't my cuppa tea - gary numan shits on thom yorke - i saw tubeway
army in preston after being sneaked in by my mate's brother (
cheers,Paul ! ) and gazza was better than the skids !

Intrumental is different from lyrics in that one has words and the
other doesn't. Evocation versus invocation. You can't, for example,
get the layers of meaning present in "Girls and Boys" without words.

Similarly, direct lyrical depiction is different from abstract
picture-painting. Old versus new REM. Or Kid A vs OK Computer. I
couldn't call it a weaker or stronger album because I don't see a
coherent theme in KID A to compare to. Amnesiac is as I said
half-and-half.

No, Thom Yorke isn't a force 9 dimwit. He makes incredibly indulgent
whiny music, but that's not the same thing as being as thick as most
of his fans.

And I'm going to have to disagree about Gary Numan. Glam with the
entrtainment value stripped out isn't really my cup of tea.

O.K. computer, for me, was a temporary reprieve for guitar music.
Pretty portentous stuff, wandering observations strung together with
sentiment, it doesn't delivery a punchline to his achy question, he's
too busy asking them, but that's part of their whole prog equation on
this one. Style over content. Indie schtick lumbering through the
same old moves, wearing the trendiest boots in Camden. Nothing wrong
with that, unless you're asking if it's classic.
But the 'enigmatic' Thom Yorke does right to shy from the media, I
think he knows he's a lite-weight.
My high-light is fitter/happier. And their new direction that might
drag rock out of the stadium.

Hang about, hang about, "godawful whingeing?" And where would one
classify the vague and ill-formed rant that is "If You Tolerate This,
Your Children Will Be Next?".

Classic. Yorke's lyrics never bothered me despite their ranting
qualities (all you Destiny's Child fans, pause in thought about which
90s artists are the biggest whiners). The music is pretty much
amazingly written and executed.

Oh, come on, Gary Numan? "Cars" sounds like it was written by a
nitwit child with a synth (and not in a good way), with lyrics
written by his older brother who just read 1984 in tenth grade
English class. And you can go on all you want about how it was an
amazing bit of paranoid futurist chart pop, but between "Cars" and
"No Surprises", which is/will be more dated?

Dr. C's thoughts pretty much mirror mine, especially the part about
Magazine beating them to the punch with more punch. I do like OK
Computer somewhat, will never have the use to hear Pablo Honey or The
Bends again, and completely adore Kid A.

Dave M. is apparently unfamiliar with the fact that I am an old
Manics fan and utterly loathe TIMTTMY. However, I'd still hold fast
that at least If You Tolerate This has pretty vocals that don't sound
like my cat freaking out over second hand pot smoke.

Well, "Cars" has survived 22 years intact and sounds more 'relevant'
(use! other! words! please!) now than ever (also more danceable,
hooray!). "No Surprises" is a queasy mixture of empathy and
patronisation with melodramatic bits like "silence. silence." and
stuff about carbon monoxide. It does have a very pretty music-box
hook, though.

(They're not really comparable lyrically, though - Pulp's "The Fear"
covers similar territory to "No Surprises" (and a lot of OKC), but
does it with more wit, sympathy and humanity.)

Classic. I share most people's general objections to Radiohead, Thom
Yorke and his lyrical content, but man, the music is gorgeous. And
it's also the album where they stopped sounding like U2 impersonators.

There is a slight and oft-overlooked humour in Radiohead records, i
think, buried somewhere deep in the double ironies, bordering too
often on Yhorke's pointless suspicions of basic human
interactions. 'Paranoid Android', though, is one of the most
bizarrely, magnificent self-parodies I think I've come across on
record. This persumes "the crackle of pig skin" refers to people
eating pork scratchings in a bar.

Tom - Really ? I can't imagine U2 trying something like "Paranoid
Android" or "Exit Music For A Film". You might be right about the
Joshua Tree-style guitar though - it's been a while since I listened
to OKC. Still, The Bends sounds way more like a U2 album to me,
especially the singing.

i think okc marks their move away from past influences and
into a brand new world of artists to take cues from (not that it
lasted long). instead of being an entirely different animal to the
bends, it's a halfway point, e.g. the hybrid of 70s pink floyd
and joshua tree u2 on "lucky."

The Bends to me sounds like a (rather successful) attempt to marry
British and American style alt.rock, as it then was - so yeah,
u2/Simple Minds are in there, ditto the angstier end of British rock,
but there's a hell of a lot of Nirvana in there too.

This *is* one entertaining thread. Can I go on record as saying I
enjoy _OK Computer_ and also am a Numan fanatic? Though his most
recent record was fairly monochrome.

Tom was right to note that the subject matter and vague reachings
towards 'concept' are red herrings. Do you get off on the sonic fun
of _OK Computer_ or not? On that level I do, and it's great. I can't
agree completely on the late eighties Simple Minds comparison, though
-- that bunch were perfectly sculpted (listen to _Street Fighting
Years_ -- I DARE YOU), whereas Radiohead were trying to sound
perfectly unsculpted, intentionally rough around the edges. Perhaps
the same approach via different means, I'll grant.

What I think is interesting about the claim regarding 'pointless
distrust of human interaction' -- and that *is* a great line -- is
that clearly the lyricist and the person are two different things. An
obvious point, but still -- after all, would the figure outlined in
the lyrics actually have had a girlfriend for a decade, plus one baby?
;-) One more reason why I don't look for depths where they are
overdetermined by others...

Obliged, Tom! Coincidentally, I've just finished my first listen fg
Amnesiac beginning to end, and it's rather tiring, between 'Pull/Pulk
Revolving Doors' and 'Living in a Glass House' there's barely a
moment of interest. Save for the reworking of 'Morning Bell', which
has some strange moments in the background, reminding me a little of
the spacier levels of Sonic the Hedgehog on the Sega Megadrive. Music
for computer games is remarkable, sometimes.

which of these are better than songs on HTTT? i only ever heard the There There single with Paperbag Writer and Where Bluebirds Fly, the former of which I don't remember and the latter I really love but it's an instrumental - where would it go on the record?

I still don't understand how they made two records out of the 'Kid A' sessions, and on neither one were two of the best three or four tracks from the whole thing, 'Kinetic' and 'Worrywort,' both of which I feel like presage a lot of the best Radiohead work of later years. Both would be among the most successful of Yorke's stabs at "electronic" music.

still so gobsmacked that "Cuttooth" (skip to 22:45 in the video above) didn't make it on any album bcz it is def one of their strongest b-sides but also like str8 up one of their strongest songs imo??? I mean in its current form it wouldn't have fit neatly into either Kid A or Amnesiac but like just throw some crunchy glitchy electronics on it ffs

amnesiac is def the canonical "b-sides better than the album cuts" radiohead album. can't object too much with the rest of the records. yeah "talk show host" was good enough for a record but i'm not about to go out and demand they drop "sulk" to make room for "the trickster" or whatever.

still so gobsmacked that "Cuttooth" (skip to 22:45 in the video above) didn't make it on any album bcz it is def one of their strongest b-sides but also like str8 up one of their strongest songs imo???

That's so funny, because seeing that compilation and hearing that track reminded me it existed, I'd hated it so much when it came out. Really presaged their sludgy thing of thinking they were riding a groove a la Can circa 'Hail to the Thief,' when really they were just plodding aimlessly. It doesn't have songcraft, it doesn't have an interesting structure, it's boringly produced, it doesn't have an interesting beat. . . Man I guess I still hate it ; )

Side B:Nigel AMS DelayJonnys Radio from Climbing up the wallsClimbing up the walls (Thom 4track)A piano lies down in the middle of the roadTransposing Noise sketch by NigelEarly paranoid android version by Jonny and ThomAlternative Paranoid Android ending live in PittsburgAirbag early acoustic version(Talking)Paranoid Android Loud Room at St CatherinesNigel AMS paranoid guitar sampleNude early band versionThe national anthem (Thom 4 track)Ambient LoopsMan of WEar live in MontpellierNigel AMS delay againThoms acoustic as microphone in Climbing up the WallsOk Computer program

I don't understand why this wasn't made widely available. I would pay $10-20 bucks to hear this tape but instead I'm going to go find a rip of it somewhere. What's the damage? Just put a zip file up on W.A.S.T.E. and I'm there.

I would love to listen to their outtakes and experiments because their recorded output is obviously meticulously controlled and their live performances don't include much room for improv (cue someone telling me about jonnys guitar solos or thom moaninv slightly differently but come on when a Radiohead song starts, live, you pretty much know exactly how it will proceed)

I recall a slower standalone version of the 3rd section in "Paranoid Android" (the "rain down" part) appearing in Meeting People Is Easy and I always wanted to hear that demo on its own, but it's been tough to locate on file sharing.

You can find the whole thing on Soulseek. There's many useless and kind of creepy snippets (the isolated radio loops for Climbing Up the Walls in particular are terrifying - or at least they are to me hearing them alone in my house at night) but it's cool they're there... if we only keep the full songs, we have:

Attention and Are You Someone? are new songs. The former sounds REM inspired, the later is a weird sort of song coming from them at this era... very 90's angst like something off of Pablo Honey or The Bends... sounds like the distant cousin of Talk Show Host. It wouldn't fit at all in OKC.Let Down and Airbag demos sounds like they come from an alternate universe where OKC was released by an indie jangle rock band. Supposedly the way the guitars sound in the album version of Let Down is actually a layer error that sent one of the guitars playing earlier and they loved the sound so they kept it that way. I don't know if it's true or not but it's cool to hear this version with that guitar missing.MPS is perhaps the best vocal performance from Thom in here and it's better than the KID A one. I kind of want to hear an edit of this vocals with the music from Kid A.Climbing Up The Walls demo is some sort of trip hop/rock version that wouldn't sound out of place in a Gorillaz album (or maybe a NIN one).Nude is similar sound-wise to the version from Meeting People is Easy but it has radically different lyrics to that one and the one that ended up in IR. It's kind of weak in this form and good they saved it for later.National Anthem is really different to the KID A version... slower bass but faster drums. The anxiety from Kid A is there but this is another one that it was so good they saved, in this form it sounds like a bad outtake off of U2's Zooropa or POP.

The tape has so many interesting moments that gives you a peek into their creative process. There's per example Nigel sampling a guitar from Paranoid Android which ended up being used as the background ambience in Fitter Happier. You can also hear how Paranoid Android was recorded in different rooms - loud parts where done in bigger rooms apparently and then spliced into the quier parts.

Oh there's also geeky stuff hidden in the tape! The last track "ok computer program" is an actual ZX spectrum program:

this is really sweet, i love when bands put out the raw sludge of their creative process. listening to that first True Love Waits loop took me aback, I knew I had heard one of those bleeps before- it ended up being incorporated into Pull/Pulk.

also lol a bunch of Radiohead superfans came into the store the other day and they were talking about how much better the Motion Picture Soundtrack version is than the Kid A one. they repeated the party line - "it's just... it's his best vocal." I don't get that... I love the song, but the mellow/passive delivery on Kid A and all the awesome Disney-esque accouterments are so much better... first of all, the piano on this demo is low in the mix and distorted, it sounds shitty, and his vocal is so saccharine, so glad they saved that one...

yeah I didn't either, but when the studio version came out it really snuck up on me. not a red letter song, but there's something about it that's stuck with me. i like "Man O War" but don't dig the Bond theme vibe.